


Still You Do Not Answer

by M3m3mnt0M0r1



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Virtual Reality, Amami Rantaro (Mentioned) - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Chabashira Tenko (mentioned) - Freeform, Character Study, Doll Imagery, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Gokuhara Gonta (mentioned) - Freeform, Hoshi Ryoma (mentioned) - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Iruma Miu Needs Therapy, Iruma Miu-Centric, K1-B0 (mentioned) - Freeform, K1-B0 spelled Kiibo, Miu and Kaede are Lesbians, Not Beta Read, Oma Kokichi (mentioned), Ouma not Oma, Saihara Shuichi (mentioned) - Freeform, Self-Indulgent, Shinguji Korekiyo (mentioned) - Freeform, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tojo Kirumi (mentioned) - Freeform, Yonaga Angie (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 22:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19094530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M3m3mnt0M0r1/pseuds/M3m3mnt0M0r1
Summary: Iruma Miu is but a broken doll. Akamatsu Kaede knows the feeling.





	Still You Do Not Answer

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on A03. I hope you enjoy it! The title comes from "Still Doll" by Kanon Wakeshima. Read the tags; some content may be triggering.

It's been a long time since she woke up without screaming. The shrieks echoed around her, the cries of a banshee. Or perhaps someone being squished to death. She shuddered, her arms crossed, clutching her elbows. 

It'd been a long time since she'd had the dream. The screaming was at its worst on those nights. She could feel the fabric, a vise around her throat, tugging tighter and tighter and tighter until--she forced her eyes open. She would not relive her death. Beside the obvious trauma, her death was humiliating. Strangled by toilet paper? She could've thought of a million ways--no, a billion!-- more fitting for the gorgeous girl genius. 

Upon further thought, she realized she died as she lived. 

Dirty, efficient, unspectacular. 

It was a fair death then, she figured. She vaguely thought of Kaede. She'd been strangled too. Did Kaede have dreams like this? Did she wake up in the middle of the night, wet with sweat--or was it tears? She couldn't tell anymore. Her mind conjured up a dirty joke--you like being wet, don't you? and she let out a bitter chuckle.

How had she sunken so low? Where was her confidence now? It died with her, it seemed. In group, she kept the mask up. No one would ever see the missing light in the ex-inventor's eyes. But in therapy, she was grateful for the soundproofed walls. Each session--daily, as she hadn't made much progress since first entering the hospital--consisted of a broken doll, weeping her little dead eyes out.

The sobs wracked her body, rattled her bones. An old memory popped up--a man in a motorcycle ring spinning round and round until he liquefied into butter. Was this how he felt? Like his molecules were coming apart? Ligaments popping out of place? She could feel the blood rush into her internal cavities as she wailed. Her heart had shattered her sternum--she could feel the broken shards pressing in. She saw the large bruises cover her arms, proof that blood was surely pooling below. 

She clawed--the blood needed to breathe. It needed to get out out out. Like the thoughts, like her soul leaving her body as the coil of paper choked her suffocated her killed her.

A hand. A soft hand, with long, delicate fingers, wrapped around her arm. Squeezing, gently. But not like the toilet paper. No, this grasp was more of a reassurance. An anchor. She closed her eyes, forcing the lids to smash together. She popped them open.

The bruises were gone. She turned to face the owner of the hand--to thank it, to curse at it--she didn't know.

But when she turned to look, she only saw the stiff silhouette of an ex-pianist. Shoulders back, head raised, neck tensed. If she were looking at Kaede's face, she was sure she would've seen her doll eyes, a perfect match to the dead ones lying in her own head.

The two had to stick together. One was innocent, and one not so much, but they were bonded in a most unnatural way; they'd shared a method of death. It wasn't a badge of honor so much as a matching scar. They both recalled the thickness of the rope, the scratchiness of the paper. So they connected. 

Kaede confided in her. Saihara had made her out to be a saint, and acted like they were long lost lovers. Amami wanted to be friends with her, to make up for an imaginary crime--even in the simulation, it didn't happen.

In turn, Miu shared a few of her secrets. Kiibo still shuddered when he looked at her, whether he was thinking of her corpse or her predatory behavior. Gokuhara always gave her a sad smile, begging for silent forgiveness. Ouma was confined to his own wing of the hospital, so he wouldn't hurt himself or others.

She supposed he was claustrophobic now. Somewhat similar to her recently acquired fear of suffocating. Somedays she wondered if he were lucky; to be locked in a room with no ghosts around.

Yet everywhere she looked, she saw them. Hoshi, Tojo, Shinguji, Yonaga, Chabashira. She avoided several spots--to see those spirits would bring back the bruises. The sensation of being crushed alive.

She supposed it was wrong of her to picture someone else's death. Sort of a twisted subversion of picturing herself as the bride of another person's wedding.

But it made her feel better. It made her feel as if she had died for a noble cause. Like Ouma, like Momota. It only made sense that she mimic the death closest her own.

When she told Kaede about that, she learned that she wasn't alone. Kaede constantly imagined her head bashed in, skull fragmented, like Amami's had been. Like his death were her own. Kaede had developed a habit of feeling the back of her head, then shoving her hand in front of her face. To make sure no blood covered the fingers, she assumed.

She had taken to grasping Kaede's arm whenever those dead eyes became blank, like the first day the latter had done that to the former.

As time wore on, the need for those touches grew smaller, while the want for them grew larger.

Eventually, she even made dirty jokes in front of the ex-pianist. And the girl laughed. Akamatsu Kaede wasn't pure. And neither was she.

But she was Iruma Miu. And with her golden brain, she would make something of herself. She had started to pick up the pieces of her shattered mind, and Kaede had helped her put them back together. 

They were two dolls, of blood and bone, and they were sewing each other up, one stitch at a time.


End file.
